This year I decided to slow down the never ending explorations of new eel waters, cancel my annual pilgrimage to Scotland and to stay closer to home in order to concentrate my time on the special few venues I have tracked down that seemingly have the potential for an eel of 8lb+. These are all hard waters with a very low population of eels, no history of pollution or commercial netting and often holding no pike, few perch and a massive population of small bait fish.

In August 2009 I set out to do a long session during the week of a full moon. The session was planned to be during the phase of a full moon because this has often been a successful time for big eels on past occasions. The weather was very warm with some torrential showers, typical for August. Water temperatures are at their highest at this time of year which encourages the eels to be more active.

Lobworms are my preferred bait for eels but on this water the eels are feeding predominately on the masses of small fish. Also, there is such a large population of nuisance fish - carp, bream and roach – which makes worm fishing for eels just about impossible. Dead gudgeon was the successful bait on this occasion. The bait is fished off-bottom by means of a Dyson Rig. The off-bottom bait catches currents that disperse the scent trail further than a bait on the bottom where the smell absorbs into the silt and remains in the bottom layers. I fish the bait off-bottom like this when using worms as well as deadbaits and it definitely accounts for more big eels; they use their sense of smell to home in on the bait which they can find even when it is several feet off the bottom in heavily coloured water. One fact that always sticks in my memory is that the freshwater eel has a greater sense of smell than any other fish except the great white shark. Also, when you see eels swimming they are up in the water not crawling along the bottom.
 
 My approach to a new venue is to fish all the likely areas first. A part of the lake that is neglected and rarely fished would be a good starting place; then other areas, always trying new areas. I never bait the swim with dead maggots or anything else as this attracts unwanted species that cause endless liners. The search for big eels is a slow game and success doesn’t always come on the first night. This year my persistence was to pay off when after I had done 71 night sessions on the venue I finally caught the fish of dreams.

 I arrived to find the favoured swim occupied so I walked round the lake with my eye on another area I had always fancied trying. Unfortunately the narrow path and steep banks left no room for a bivvy so I walked round to the far side trying to find a niche to squeeze in. Here the bank is lined with trees and few pegs have enough back-cast room to allow long range casting. In desperation I managed to squeeze the bivvy in – high up above the water, under a bush amongst nettles and brambles and next to a bees nest. Below was the perfect casting platform from which to make a long cast across to the desired area on the other side of the lake.

The evening before

As dark settled in the wind dropped and an eerie silence descended upon the lake. The atmosphere of the stillness was electric. A thin cloud layer covered the sky like a veil, glowing orange as it absorbed the moonlight which filtered through to light up the oil slick calm of the still surface which was dappled with floating patches of carp bubbles reflecting the silvery moon. I was not only hopeful, I excited too. The very atmosphere of a calm, silent mid-summer night such as this draws on some instinct that makes ones senses peak. Tonight the feeling was intense. It was the kind of electric feeling that you get when a massive storm is building up. It felt as though something was about to happen. Was this going to be the night?
  
The silence was interrupted at 11.05pm by a run on the 7 inch dead roach. It was an eel of 3.02 which was easily subdued with the 3.25 lb test curve rod and 15lb line.

Twenty five minutes later I was alerted by the alarm giving one bleep. The take was slight and delicate as a fish slowly and gently mouthed at the gudgeon bait on the other side of the lake. The indicator stirred and lifted slightly as it plucked at the bait, then it slowly lifted, rolled over and line was snaking steadily through the rod rings and a steady run sounded the wireless alarm sounder box quietly in my pocket. I closed the bail arm, let the line start to tighten then thumped the hook home, wound down and struck again to take up line stretch on such a long line. The unmistakable pulsating feel of a big eel bent the rod round fiercely and there was a massive slap on the surface 60 to 70 yards away - wow, this is going to take some bringing in! I had to battle for every inch of line gained and my heart was in my mouth as I slowly, gained line inch by inch. Always careful enough not to put on too much pressure and pull the hook out or snap the line, yet almost having to put on more pressure than that to move the eel towards me. The last time I felt something fight like this was in Australia when catching double figure eels and I lost most of these. With this in mind my adrenalin boosted nerves were on fire but I was determined, win or lose, I was going to going to fight this one out so I buckled down to do what I’ve done before. The eel kited round and nearly got behind a protruding branch but steady pressure brought the eel to the net, once it was over the net I lifted only to see the eel slither backwards and under the net. Unfortunately this often happens with big eels and small nets. Flashback to the DVD, ‘Angling for big eels in Australia’, to a scene where I miss an 11lb+ eel at the net then  circle the eel to line it up for the net again. With this in mind I circled the eel on the surface under an overhanging branch and above sunken snags – twice – before successfully getting it into the net at the third attempt. The fight was altogether pretty scary and it’s interesting to note that the eel kited off to the side which doesn’t normally happen. Stories of massive eels that have been lost by some NAC members and my experiences with double figure eels in Australia has confirmed that bigger eels often manage to kite like this. Instead of going in to the familiar tug of war mode where the eel swims backwards and pulls in a straight line, the eel is swimming in forward motion and using its weight to power to the side. There is always a tussle at the net. It never works out as you would expect and determination is the key with adrenalin the fuel.

Nearby anglers Ian and Lee were soon in my swim. I was visibly shaking from the fight and gibbering something about a personal best by a mile. The hook was visible, firmly embedded in the corner of its mouth and it was carefully unhooked by Lee because I was still shaking too much. My head was gone. We bumbled around and mis-weighed it at 8.15 then sacked it up till morning for photographing, measuring and reweighing.

As soon as the commotion was over I cast the rods back in because big eels often travel in pairs. Further excitement occurred at 1.15am when another eel run developed but this time it was a small eel of about 1 lb which snaffled the dead gudgeon. The thin cloud cleared and the temperature dropped until there was an autumn-nip feeling to the morning. When it got light I was engulfed by columns of mist coming off the water. The sun rose and penetrated the swirling mist until I could feel its warmth on my face. This was a special morning and, as I waited for Pete to arrive and take some photos, I broke in to a broad grin. By now I was totally drained by the emotions of the night, tiredness and hunger but all this was overpowered by a totally blown away kind of numb feeling. The feeling of total smugness.

The morning after with a 9 in the sack.

In daylight, with new batteries in the digital scales, the eel was reweighed with reliable witnesses present to accurately record a weight of 9.02. It was 42.5 inches long with a 12 inch girth and, as far as it is known, is the second biggest eel caught by design. I’ve caught longer eels that were half the weight. It is not the length that is so unusual; it is the massive 12” girth of this eel that is so incredible.

9.02 Personal Best

A weight gain of 1lb every 10 years would age this eel at 92 yet I don’t believe this eel was that old. It would seem that eels experiencing a higher growth rate will pack the extra weight onto the girth while their length continues to increase at the normal annual rate. The weight gain in such an eel will be a lot faster than the so often quoted 10 years per 1lb and the 9.02 was probably much younger than 90 odd years of age. Rapid growth rates do occur in exceptional waters that are full of food and have few or no other predators in competition. If that water is also really old, then enough time will have passed for an eel to grow in both length and girth to a record size.

The capture of this specimen has brought inspiration and hope for the future. I’m at the stage in eel angling where I am ready to reap the rewards from the many years of graft that were spent researching and pioneering any and every water during the search for somewhere special; the search for somewhere with a such a good possibility factor that it gives rise to expectations that will make the numerous blanks crackle with excitement. I have found one or two likely waters where I can continue with the quest to beat my personal best. It looks as though the quest is for a double now.

At the end of the 2009 season NAC records officer Steve Dawe summed up my season and wrote “ The staggering thing is Barry endured 67 blanks but that one fish eradicates a lifetime of blanks.”

Are you superstitious? Do you believe in the numbers game? This date has a once every 100 years possibility of occurring. I caught the 9lb eel on 07/08/09 and if I had caught it at 12.34 and 56 seconds on 7/8/09 phew. I had actually caught it an hour earlier than this but what about the hours difference for British Summer Time.

 Even weirder than this was my phone call to break the news to my girlfriend Veronica who had no way of knowing the weight of the eel. I prompted her with, “guess the weight of the eel I have just caught,” expecting her to say 6 something or maybe due to my tone she would aim high with a 7 plus. I nearly fell over backwards when she cut the chase and came straight out with 9.03. She later claimed to have had a premonition that I would get a 9.02 this year and then added an ounce for good measure.

One matter that has come to mind this year is regarding the larger sizes attained in recent times by other species such as tench, bream and barbel. These species now grow to a size that would have been unbelievable 30 years ago. The bait-pushing tackle traders and overstocked commercial fishery owners all try to convince me that it is boilies and high protein pellets that are packing the weight on these species. But I know this is not the case as one of the waters I fish holds double figure tench that have never seen boilies and such. So if it isn’t the feeding of these fish that is increasing their size it must surely be the breeding. Here are a few questions for you to mull over. Isn’t every species of animal getting bigger as time goes by and the biggest and strongest dominate to breed; so bringing about selective breeding of larger specimens year after year, thus causing an increase in size? Even mankind is getting bigger. So what about eels? Also since the younger eel stocks are in decline doesn’t this mean less competition for food and greater growth rates for the older surviving eels? Could many of the surviving eels decide to stay on in the water (they keep on growing and growing) for many, many more years than usual as nature re-programmes its timer for species survival? These eels could return to the sea to breed in many years to come once the threats that currently hamper the eels from returning to Sargasso have reduced.  Surely, even before taking the above questions into account, the time is nigh for the English record of 11.02 caught in 1978 to fall.

I ended the year deciding to try and catch a winter eel. As the north and midlands suffered a big freeze up and heavy snow, I headed for Cornwall which was milder. There, within earshot of the sea, I managed to get a few runs and catch 2 eels on 29th December 2009. I think that eels, just like any other fish, can be caught in winter and I have one or two waters in mind to try next winter.

As I write this in January 2010 it is minus 13 outside and snowing heavily. It is so cold that the water pipes in my caravan have burst and the toilet is frozen solid. Luckily I am off to the warmer climate of Australia at the end of the month and the camcorder is getting dusted down ready to come out of retirement.

 My first encounter with a camcorder was when three of us went to New Zealand in 1999. Graham opted to be the camera man and brought along a camcorder. This was before the digital era so it was an old style analogue camcorder that we took to explore the eel fishing and record the trip. The aim was to catch the biggest eel we could. Graham fell ill a third of the way into the trip and went home leaving the filming to novices, me and Pete. We travelled by bus, train and truck which restricted our mobility so that we never got to some of the most interesting waters we had heard of. Rather too late in the trip we befriended some good advisors and made a vow to return sometime to take advantage of their guidance.
 
Back at home, editing the video was difficult. Masses of poor and pointless filming had to be waded through – unsteady camera, out of focus, loud noise of the wind penetrating the mike, totally over the top swear words and stuff mad enough to get us certified. We had been too camera shy to film most people we met and hadn’t filmed once it went dark which was when we were catching most of the eels. Despite all these difficulties the end product had some good location scenery shots which, with the addition of music, helped mould the adventure in to some kind of flow that was surprisingly watchable entertainment. Two VHS videos were made- Nothing Ventured: Nothing Gained and Big Eels at Wagon Creek. These have since been digitally re-mastered into DVD format.

In 2001 we returned to New Zealand armed with a new digital camcorder. I read about someone making angling films with a camcorder costing several thousand yet here we were doing some quality (uhum) filming with one for £300. This time we knew where we wanted to go and used Avis car hire to get us to get us deep into the New Zealand back country.

Doing the editing on a computer was time consuming but the results were rewarding. I also managed to convert the analogue film from the first trip in 1999 and dub music over the noises of the wind in the microphone and such like. It wasn’t too difficult to use rock music along with nature and movie sound tracks to gloss over interferences and create a theme that links the film together.

Some good filming came from the wacky trip which was eccentric by nature of the venue, quest and participants.

In one scene we walked, climbed and scrambled up the riverbed of a clear stream through the middle of impassable jungle to reach remote areas that hadn’t been commercially netted. Here we managed to film things such as: catching a 10lb eel at night without any hook on the line; an eel taking bait placed above the waterline on a rock; eels using the current to scent out the bait in crystal clear waters; a glow-worms colony that looks like the starry sky at night and many jungle noises at night including flightless nocturnal kiwi and weka birds.

Other scenes included a visit to an aquarium full of huge eels at feeding time, a tour of a commercial eel processing plant, an eel pass on a dam and a look at the history of eels in New Zealand and its eel management plan. Some odd venues are explored such as a slaughterhouse outflow, an underwater cave entrance and a glacier. Three doubles are caught one night from a lakeside campsite. A series of massive lakes above hydro dams are explored and found to contain huge landlocked eels where, using road-kill such as dead possum for bait, eels of 14, 15 and 16lb were landed. A 14lb eel was caught and sacked up in the margins at night where it was filmed communicating to another eel that approached the sack. These and many other scenes were dubbed with music to produce two one hour long DVD’s Heaven and Hell & Summer in February.

Graham was always well peeved at the way his 1999 New Zealand trip as the camera man was cut short. In 2002 he offered to bring a camcorder to the fens and film some zander fishing.  He still hadn’t learnt how to avoid the wind in the microphone or perhaps you can’t avoid the wind on the fens. It was fun to make and by now my editing skills had improved and I was able to sort it out into a watchable action packed zander fishing DVDs.

During Christmas 2003 we flew to Australia seeking even bigger eels. Here it was difficult to film as we struggled to adjust to the heat. The temperature in the first two weeks was above 120 degrees each day and it wasn’t till the third week that it dropped to 90 odd and we were able to do some filming in the day. All in all it was too hot, dry and barren to be suitable for us to film a full blown adventure as we did in New Zealand. During the day it was too hot to walk far. However we did manage to film quite a bit of eel action which was put together with some rock, aussie and a bit of abo music to make a DVD. Some absolutely huge eels were lost as 16 and 20lb line snapped like cotton and proved totally inadequate. We vowed to return with proper gear.

The biggest eel we caught was a 23+ which according to the web www.fishing-worldrecords.com is actually the rod and line caught record for Anguilla Reinhardi. Pete world record Drabble and myself are going to fish the same two waters in Australia this February where we seriously believe it is possible to double the record - at least!

So here we are 7 years later preparing to go to Australia armed with 6lb test curve travel rods and big pit reels loaded with 80lb braid – a no prisoners trip. This time the DVD should be action packed with big eels as we plan to focus more on the bankside fishing than on surrounding and influential factors. Although New Zealand is the best, most hospitable and chilled out country I have ever visited, the eels are not as big as in hot, dry, dusty, unappealing Australia. We are driven by big eels not holiday venues, so it is to Australia we go to see how big the massive tackle smashing eels we kept losing on the last trip will turn out to be……Watch this space  . . .

Meanwhile two articles on eel angling in the southern hemisphere are on my website along with this one. Each one was written for and is taken from the Bulletin of The National Anguilla Club
From Volume 41, issue 1 summer 2003 - Quest for the Longfin Eel.
From Volume 42, issue 1 summer 2004 – Monster Eels in Australia.